


catching the stars

by cakecakecake



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Budding Love, Earn Your Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Multi, Polyamory, Post-TRoS, Redemption, Spoilers, That's Not How The Force Works, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: ben lives. rey wants to take him home to her other two boyfriends, but he's got some work to do before he gets his happy ending.a feel-good set of vignettes about how ben repents for his sins and rey is loved by three very different, very special men.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ladies we are COPING!!!!

The first thing she says is his name. 

“Ben.”

He smiles and there’s starlight in his eyes, soft and glimmering. Her hands tremble as she reaches to touch his face. He’s cold, so cold -- but the pulse of the bonded force between them is warm, refulgent.

“Hey, Rey,” he says softly. The rumble of his voice thrums against her chest. Rey blinks back tears, dripping hot down her dirty cheeks. 

“You came,” she can barely croak. “You came back.”

He chortles throatily, baring his teeth as his smile splits open, wide and crooked and mesmerizing. Her thumb grazes his bottom lip and it’s soft. Trembling. A hard swallow bobs in this throat and she starts to frown, feeling his heartbeat drumming against her chest. His breath hitches -- 

“Rey, I don’t…”

Panicked, Rey seizes him, clutching him closer -- he’s getting colder. 

“Hey, hey, no, no, no, Ben,” she stutters, pressing her forehead to his. He’s going limp in her grasp -- 

“Rey,” he struggles, hoarsely, “I don’t think I…” 

“Shhh, no no no, no,” she starts to choke, vision blurred by fresh tears. His face is quickly becoming a slur of faded colors as she starts to cry. “No I won’t let you go, I won’t let you go -- "

Ben clings to her, feebly. His grip is stubborn, fingernails caught in the loose threads of her garb -- but he can hardly manage the weight of his own arms. He sways, unsteady, unfairly long lashes fluttering as he fights to keep his eyes open, to keep them on her. Rey holds tight to him, lips against his ear as she struggles to keep him upright -- 

“Be with me, Ben, be with me -- "

She hears him chortle. “Remember when I was -- hard to get rid of?”

She wants to laugh, chokes out a sob instead. “Shhh, shut up, you’re okay, you’re okay, just stay with me -- stay with me -- “

He’s getting too heavy to hold up. The corners of his mouth twitch in a struggle to keep smiling, but she can hear in the shortness of his breath that it’s too hard for him. His hands flutter down the length of her back, falling at his sides. His eyes close, shut. She can’t let him lay down, if he lays down, she loses him -- and she can’t lose him. Not now, not after all of that, all of this -- 

“Please don’t leave me, Ben,” she begs him, begs the Force. Her nails rake into his back as she wrestles with his weight -- she can’t keep him up anymore. His head lolls backward -- and he is still. Silent as the air sucked from her lungs. 

Rey crushes her face against his neck, winding her fingers in his torn shirt. “Don’t leave me alone.”

She watches her own tears spill down the length of his neck, hot against the chill of his clammy skin. She shakes him, uselessly, moving her hands to lay him against the bed of rock, to cradle his head. Her fingers tangle in the coal-black tousle of his hair, trace the shell of his ear. The scar she gave him had been fading; she can hardly notice it against the dusting of freckles on his cheeks, the marks near his nose and eyes. Rey touches her lips to each one. 

Her palm drifts to the dip of his waist. If it could work once -- 

Breathe. The hushed whispers of forgotten voices -- Leia’s gentle sigh, Luke’s quiet chortle -- and Han, calling his name. She shuts her eyes and sees his hand on his son’s face and lets it guide her own. She touches him where his father last did so and when she does, she sees them -- Leia is twenty and giggling as Han Solo twirls a stray hair around his finger and kisses her. 

Rey opens her eyes.

She lifts his head, shifting around him -- there’s something else that she can try. Craning her neck, she holds him, arms around him as she bends her head. His face is so close to hers, his lips almost blue. She kisses him.

It’s an honest, quiet kiss. A soft plea, words he can’t hear but words that can maybe still reach him somehow, somewhere -- he must be somewhere. She can feel it. The dyad in the Force, as one of their Two, Two, they are Two -- she reaches for him with this kiss. Calls out with her feelings -- all of them. She is so, so loved. _And so are you, so let me show you, Ben._ She parts their mouths and breathes into him -- and something beneath her starts to shake. 

Her eyes open to watch his flicker to life. There’s a thrumming against her palm, the pulse of their connection rapidly rising, and then Ben takes a breath. Watches her mouth curve into a grin before tilting his chin up to meet her -- and to kiss her back. 

_You’re not alone_ , he says. His answer is heard in the back of her head, in the pit of her heart. Her soul resonates with his words.

Rey clutches his face as he moves his hands behind her head, fingertips warm against the roots of her hair. He opens his mouth to her, wet and wanting. She lets her hands wander, aching to reach every part of him. She feels his heartbeat everywhere she touches him and it’s driving her mad. 

She doesn’t want to stop kissing him.

“Rey,” he murmurs thickly, like his tongue is caught in his throat. 

“Ben.” She smiles. He rests his forehead against hers. 

“You’re still here.”

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” she says, stubbornly, like he should have known. 

“They’re waiting for you,” he tells her, sober. “You should go to them.”

“Come with me,” is her earnest request, but he shakes his head.

Ben holds her hand, blood and sweat smearing between her fingers as he laces them with his. His grip is so tight, like he never wants to let go. “There’s things I want to talk about, but…”

“But what,” she worries. Her brows knit to a crease. They’re finally together, but --

“I can’t face them yet,” he wavers, sniffling. “The Resistance. I can’t go back with you.”

Rey will ask, even though she already knows. “Then where will you go?” 

“Where I need to be,” he says, with hope, deep brown eyes welling with tears. She’s already thinking of a place. A place they’ve never been, but need to see -- somewhere they can learn, they can mend -- themselves, and the others. Somewhere they’ve been in dreams. Where it all started, so they can begin again. Rey smiles again. She makes a promise.

“I’ll come find you.” 

Ben rises. There’s a tremble in his knees, but he can stand, still holding her hand and she follows, eyes never leaving his as she gets to her feet. He looks at her as though she’s all he can see, the only thing he wants to see. 

“Rey, I -- "

She covers his mouth and he smiles against it.

“I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

In the weeks following the celebration, Rey feels nothing. 

The haunted, hushed voices of the people she knew as her parents are silent -- there are no dark whispers or hisses from the man she’s rejected as her grandfather. The strings pulling at the wheels in the back of her head have snapped, dangling in loose threads around the core of her mind and for once, she feels peace. Free. Like her mind is her own at last.

For the first time, it’s quiet inside her head. She hopes it’s the same for Ben. 

She hasn’t told them about him yet. They’re not ready -- part of her doesn’t think they ever will be, but the time will come soon for them to reunite, and she doesn’t want to leave them out of it. She’s tired of keeping secrets, it’s exhausting. Her heart and soul are too strained for it anymore. She just doesn’t know where to begin. 

The First Order has fallen, but there’s still work to be done. Messes to clean, big ones. For every family brought back together, there’s three that have been torn apart -- homes broken, loved ones missing or lost. The Resistance is trying to slot the missing pieces back inside. Poe and Finn have been scarce, General and General taking off for different parts of the galaxy to dissipate tension and pick off the remnants. It’s dirty work, work that likely won’t ever be done, but they do it proudly. 

For a while, Rey is content to support them from the sidelines while she takes the time to accept herself, learn herself and who she wants to be. She was no one for so long, only to suddenly be thrust into being the most feared Someone in the galaxy’s recent history. She’s not a Palpatine, no matter whose blood courses through her veins -- and as badly as she wants to belong to Leia’s family, she’s not a Skywalker. She is simply herself. Just like Finn is just Finn, she is just Rey. 

And that’s okay.

***

“WHO TOOK MY TOOTHBRUSH?”

It’s much too early for Poe’s agitated yelling, but Rey can hear him over the blaring synth-pop from the entertainment room on the Falcon. She shuffles down the ramp with her fingers wound in her hair, trying to neatly braid it the way Leia taught her. She finds herself snapping back at him the same way she would have --

“In the washroom, where else would it be?”

And Poe snaps back, “No it’s not, mine’s the green one -- "

She huffs, rolling her eyes as she pins her braid and reaches for her satchel. “Poe, mine is the green one -- "

“YOU’VE been using the green one?”

“The green what?” Finn butts in, suddenly appearing behind the scaffold.

“Toothbrush!” Poe and Rey spit together and Finn’s eyes go round.

“WHAT? But the green one is MINE -- "

“We have THREE TOOTHBRUSHES, how does this happen -- " Rey screeches and pushes past between them to grab a gasket for the compressor. Poe does that thing he always does when he’s angry and cocks his hips out, tousling his unruly curls. His brow furrows in that infuriatingly attractive way and Rey hates it, hates that she likes how he looks when he’s upset -- she wonders if this is how Leia felt about Han and can't help but smile through her irritation.

“Fine, it’s fine!" he grunts, throwing his hands up. "I’ll just get a new one -- a THIRD new one -- "

She calms, lowering her voice with a suggestion of, “Would it help if we wrote our names on them, labeled them -- ?”

“Are we seriously gonna start labeling our toiletries -- " Finn’s not helping, of course. He’s making that pouty face he makes whenever Poe is riled and he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t want to make it worse, but he also doesn’t want to Rey to be upset, so he just hovers in the middle of them looking pitiful. It’s adorable. It should be getting old, but it’s not.

“Well if we’re gonna keep stealing each other’s shit,” Poe starts but doesn’t finish just as Rose waddles her way over to the landing, clutching a heavy pack over her shoulder. Her eyes are bright and her skin glistens from the heat. 

“Morning! Everything okay?”

“Fine, Rose, everything’s fine,” Poe huffs, motioning to the pile on the comp-set. “Could you grab those cables there for me?”

She does so, and tosses them at him. “Catch."

“Thanks. Finn could you help me with the..." he trails off, emptily like he’s just saying something to get away from them, and Finn understands, following him around behind the ship.

“The -- ? Yeah! Yeah, yeah I’m coming -- "

“You sure everything’s okay?” Rose says quietly to Rey, lifting her brows. Rey just sighs, fighting back a grin.

“Yeah, it’s just -- you know how they get when I leave.”

“I know,” she smiles back, nudging her with her elbow. “But hey, you’ll be with me this time, that should make them feel better, right?”

“I think it just makes them more jealous,” Rey starts to laugh, “but it certainly makes _me_ feel better.”

“Hey, that’s what really matters,” she winks at her and a little part of Rey melts. “I’m gonna poke around for those power converters, I’ll be right back.”

Rose darts off, and Finn swings back around to her side, a reassuring hand on her back.

“Hey."

“Hey. Still cranky?”

“I wasn’t cranky!” Finn whines and she groans.

“I meant Poe."

“Oh, right, yeah,” he mutters, a little embarrassed. “He’s fine, it’s just that...we just...you know.”

She knows. His eyes are soft, gleaming fondly. He’s always looked at her as though he’d never get tired of looking at her, like coming to her is coming home. She takes his hand. 

“We won,” he goes on. “We won and we can start moving on, but -- I don’t know. He feels like you’re moving backwards instead. He doesn’t understand it.”

“Finn, I can’t help him understand if he’s committed to misunderstanding me,” Rey tells him under her breath. Leia’s lightsaber feels like a heavy weight at her hip, sagging her pants down. She touches her free hand to it instinctively, protectively.

“I know. He’s just not ready to talk about it,” he says defensively, then quietly adds, “but, Rey...I want to. I wanna come with you.”

“You can when you’re ready, Finn, and you’re not ready yet,” she says, and it’s not a lie -- he’s barely begun exploring the power of the Force, hardly recognizes his abilities. This is nowhere near the time for something like this -- “I don’t even know if…”

“Rey -- "

He starts, but Rose’s reappearance makes the words catch in his mouth and he shrinks back.

“All set, then?” she asks, chipper and excited. She looks expectantly between the two of them and Rey nods, forcing a grin.

“Yup, um -- yeah, I think we’ve got everything we need.”

“Great, I’m heading up, see you in a second.”

The smaller woman darts off, and Finn grabs at her wrists, voice quivering.

“Rey. I know you think you’re all alone in this -- "

“I don’t,” she protests gently, shaking her head. It hurts that he would still think that about her, after everything, all of it -- but there’s things that he, like Poe, doesn’t understand yet. So she’s careful with him, taking measured steps up toward the Falcon and he follows. “I don’t think that, Finn. I’m not alone. I haven’t been, for a long time now. This is what’s gonna help remind me.” 

“Okay,” he says with conviction. He believes in her, no matter what -- there was never any doubt. She’s grateful. “Whatever it is you need, I’ll be there.”

“I’ll take you one day, I promise,” she says, knowing things like that drive him crazy. “When you’re ready.”

As expected, Finn’s face contorts into juvenile frustration, impatience wearing grooves into the lines of his forehead. “When I’m ready, you keep saying that, when I’m ready -- "

“You’ll know when you are,” she tells him, and pulls him close for a tight, bone-cracking hug, her arms encircled around his broad shoulders. His breath is warm against her neck.

“Be safe,” he whispers.

“Be with me,” she whispers back.

“Always with you.”


End file.
